scribbled in, ink spattered, and stained with ash
by scribblemyname
Summary: Ficlets and one-shots of Kitty Pryde and St. John Allerdyce. They'd gone from a shared book of poetry in the library to reading all manner of literature to each other in their rooms. Kitty would never have guessed John had a serious streak and a creative genius to go with it.
1. First Fig

scribbled-in, ink-spattered, and stained with ash

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**Prompt:** **arliddian**, the improbability of forever.

**Author's Notes:** "First Fig" was written by Edna St. Vincent Millay. There are various beliefs among practicing Jews, but the story is written from the perspective of just one.

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~ FIRST FIG ~

"I mean, you _can't_ love somebody forever," Jubilee was nattering on about Bobby's amorous (and ill-received) declaration to Rogue. "You can love them 'til the end, sure, but..."

Kitty frowned and shifted moodily, thoughts darkening and slithering away from her friend's words toward her own murky history. Could you love somebody for forever? She thought to herself bitterly, he couldn't even love her for two months.

Six weeks of headiness, hands touching her, tracing her hips, her shoulder, her lips. Dark corners on dark nights. They'd gone from a shared book of poetry in the library (hands meeting on the same book, glares, then reticent compromise) to reading all manner of literature to each other in their rooms. Kitty would never have guessed John had a serious streak and a creative genius to go with it. She never would have guessed she would find herself phasing soundlessly and unnoticed into his room just for the opportunity to hear his voice as he read, see his dark eyes smolder as he listened, then hear his soft, dark laugh, taste the bittersweet flavor of him when it became more than just words and fire between them.

Six weeks and his eyes darkened, his face closed, lighter crackling with tension. He was drawing away and the sweet faded into bitter.

"John," she would whisper when he was within her, stroke his hair, _try_ to hold on. "Please." Soft murmurs against the darkness inside him.

He leaned down, gripped her harder, fingers stroking her hips, and kissed her. She was undone. Soft cries, arching uncontrollably. In, out, that breathless rhythm.

In the aftermath, she watched helplessly as flames danced within his palm, light flickering across his face, him lost in a world she could not see.

Kitty was no masochist. She knew when she had lost him and did not seek him out again after Alkali Lake. She cried in his room on his bed, remembering—_first fig, first fig_—then sobered up and moved on.

"Who cares?" Kitty suddenly demanded testily of Jubilee. "Who f—ing cares?" The words tasted dark but satisfying, like bitter chocolate, drunk with the lost sugar of six achingly beautiful weeks and the spicy aftertaste of pain.

Jubilee stared at her.

Kitty ignored her, stared fiercely at the well-worn book of poetry in her hand, scribbled-in, ink-spattered, and stained with ash. John's book.

Jews did not believe in the immortality of the soul, or at least not that the dead could love. Kitty did not believe in the immortality of fire. Ever-shifting, ever-changing.

_But ah, my foes and oh, my friends—_

_It gives a lovely light._


	2. Do Not Go Gently

scribbled-in, ink-spattered, and stained with ash

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**Author's Notes:** "Do Not Go Gently into that Good Night" was written by Dylan Thomas.

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~ DO NOT GO GENTLY ~

The young man sitting on the park bench seemed young enough at first glance. He wore a dark jacket, man's jeans, combat boots—a lighter flicked open and closed in his hand, a habitual motion an observer could judge from the casual delivery of the gesture, the absent look within his eyes. But on second thought, a closer observation would reveal the faint weathered lines on his face, the neutrality of his features, the weariness about his shoulders—perhaps he was merely a good-looking thirties, not a young man still waiting to become. In fact, that maturity hovering about his edges drew more than one female eye in that green space of New York City. This was a man whom life had scribbled in, a well-worn book that could stand a test of time and patience. The only woman to introduce herself was Cynthia. She was politely declined her request to join him.

It was perhaps pure coincidence that a certain young woman crested a rise on the paved walking path, glanced up from her open book of poetry, and stopped, her murmur of lyric verse falling gently to silence. She paused and watched that weariness, the flick of an open lighter, a closed lighter, the edges of ash where fire had danced once in his eyes. Her mouth closed, her eyes softened, and she quietly approached. Unlike Cynthia, this woman demonstrated something of an understanding of the mind of the man: she did not ask to sit beside him, simply did. She did not look up at his startled glance, simply continued to read, murmuring over words they had read a thousand times.

_My candle burns at both ends—_

"Stop." He put his hand on the book, not startled enough to forget the words and spatters of ink he had once stained across his heart.

She looked up at him then, his dark eyes, open and almost afraid. Words, just words. They had never been just words and they had lived them. "John," she said calmly.

He stared at her for a long time, just breathing, palm flat over the pages—_their_ pages, caught on the same books until they had been captured in each other. He was not so old, this man; it had not been so long ago.

His fingers curled around the book. She let it go. There was certainty in the gesture: once, eight months ago, she had let him go, knowledge dark with who he had been in battle, with those last dark oats he had sown.

She watched him pull the book gently from her hand, flip a set of pages (long ago, he had loved it well enough that it fell open naturally to this poem, to that), and read aloud in that soft, dark voice.

_Do not go gently into that good night_  
_ Rave, rave against the dying of the light._

Her eyes closed, mouth tightened with pain. He studied her in silence. He only knew one language safe to speak.

Long moments and finally, a breath. He could. He did. "Kitty." So soft, she should not have heard the word. She could. She did.

She opened her eyes and met his studious gaze, whispered softly, "I miss you."

Breath stuttered and something broke within him. He leaned over and kissed her. Half a heartbeat, and _finally,_ she kissed him back.


End file.
